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Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, television, film, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.
Rockport Chamber Music Festival is in the midst of a stellar season. Saturday evening, the brilliant pianist (and writer) Jonathan Biss gave a sensational recital of two late Schubert sonatas—a music lover’s dream.
“When you collaborate with an audience and other artists, and you let hip hop flow and intertwine, anything goes.”
Hearing the novel’s poignant voices, we can’t help but think that in many respects the plight of poor young men in the ’hood is everywhere alike.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the release of John Coltrane’s magisterial album “A Love Supreme,” which has meant so much to so many.
“Art is anything you can get away with,” said Marshall McLuhan. Three films that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival suggest that he was right.
Chronicling acts of feminist sisterhood, “Girlfriend” memorializes a mutual support system that has been among the backbones of American life.
The book is crafted, sentence for sentence, as a seemingly impossibly layered mindscape — rich if not overripe in what must be metaphor, must be symbolism.
This is a measured book, harrowing at times but also thoroughly enjoyable. It’s a fun read about a rape trial.
Arts Commentary: Essential Inquiries — “40 Questions About a Political Play”
“A play is political if its subject is taboo and its story mirrors, exposes, and critiques the suppression and repression that interferes with the treatment of a cultural disease. A political play is a problem that is ignored, denied, maligned. A political play is, by definition, unpopular.”
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